11.Mar.2019
Amigaworld.net (Forum)
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Video podcast: Amiga Retro Cast on plans of the new Amiga entity
Episode 24 of the Amiga Retro Cast is about the latest events concerning the licence to use Picasso96 in Amiga Forever (amiga-news.de reported). For this Douglas Compton exchanged e-mails with Mike Battilana of Cloanto, who recently acquired further pieces of the Commodore-Amiga heritage via the newly-founded C-A Acquisition Corporation (amiga-news.de reported) - which transfer of rights has been confirmed meanwhile by the European Union Intellectual Property Office with regard to the marks "Amiga" and "powered by Amiga" that had been previously owned by Amiga Inc.
Based on that e-mail exchange Douglas Compton describes that Individual Computers and Hyperion would share the same lawyer and that the first cease and desist order regarding AmigaOS 3.1.4 had been issued by Amino Corporation following a previous law-suit by Hyperion against the Amiga parties. Furthermore he explains that Cloanto has given licences for the C64 mini and that an official announcement would be expected in the upcoming weeks.
The most interesting part is the end of the video, though. Here parts of Mike Battilana's latest e-mail are presented as written text, since it reached the podcast's author only when the video itself had been finished already. In this part - that is transcribed below - some plans of the new Amiga entity are revealed:
- Douglas Compton (DC): If possible, will there be an official way forward with the new AmigaOS 3.1.4?
Mike Battilana (MB): There must be one, don't you think so? But it also may require some patience, for the court case to be resolved. It is now emerging that some developers may have "overcommitted" themselves, and are now entangled in contracts they didn't even intend to be bound by and/or that were incompatible with other prior work done for the Amiga companies. That's another matter which will need to be resolved.
- DC: Does the new Amiga intend on continuing support and development of Amiga OS 4.1?
MB: Not only that, but we feel that it is important that OS4 remains available at fair terms to a diversity of hardware suppliers. (This is in response to concerns being raised after the OS kernel was acquired by Trevor/A-EON.) The new Amiga entity wants both 3.x and 4.x to move forward. The new Amiga entity wants both Classic and New Generation hardware platforms to move forward. One of the first steps of the new entity will be to make original hardware schematics and related code open source.
- DC: Does the new Amiga company intend on simply licensing the name or actually developing products yourselves?
MB: I am a software developer. We are software developers. Software work allowed us to make this acquisition (and may I stress, not a cent of Amiga Forever or similar revenues was spent in the acquisition or in lawsuits, etc.: that is all invested back in Amiga Forever development...) - What is your guess? :)
- DC: How would new hardware like the standalone Vampire 4 fit in? Can you license the ROMS and software to them and let handle the hardware without too many issues?
MB: That is something that Cloanto already could have done. We were actually in talks about that. Apparently, it felt appealing to others too ; )
In the end the video mentions that the amiga.com website would be controlled by Mike Battilana. For several monthes already a secret message is hidden in the HTML code that changes sometimes. This message is a quote of Friedrich Nietzsche now: "The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind." (snx)
[News message: 11. Mar. 2019, 21:49] [Comments: 0]
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